The Sky And The Forest (32 page)

“Have you seen this Loa, Sergeant?” demanded Talbot.

“No, Captain. Unless he is among those old men, and I am sure he is not.”

None of those trembling grey heads could belong to the man who had conquered all this area of Africa and who had inspired the devotion which had caused his army to annihilate itself in his defence, Talbot pushed on up the street towards the farther open space. Of course. He had been a fool not to see the large houses there. That most distant one, with the decorated gable ends, must be Loa's palace. There were herds of frightened women here, too, women with babies in their arms, women standing weeping with little children thrust behind them. The tide of the assailants was only just beginning to lap up as far as here. The sun blazed down into the open space as Talbot strode up it, with his disorganized escort hastening after him.

There was an eddy among the women clustering round the big house. They parted, and two people advanced from among them. Talbot knew Loa when he saw him; there could in fact be no mistaking him. He had been tall, although his height was lessened because his back was a little bent. He walked stiffly but with immense dignity, his head back despite his bent shoulders. He was corpulent without being obese -- maybe advancing years had already removed the fat of middle age. Over his shoulders hung a leopard-skin cloak, vivid in the sunshine; about his neck and arms were spiral ornaments of iron, and in his right hand glittered an axe, brightly polished to reflect the sunlight. Beside him hobbled a skinny old woman, her thin breasts swinging with the exertion of keeping up with him. As she hastened along at his side she never took her eyes from his face, craning forward and peering up to see it.

Talbot sorted hurriedly through his memory for words.

“Stop!” he shouted, in one of the few dialects in which he had any mastery.

He threw his left hand up, palm forward, in the universal gesture commanding a halt; his right hand held his revolver ready. Loa did not appear to hear him -- certainly he did not look at him. He continued to stride forward, his eyes directed at a point over Talbot's head. One of Talbot's escort dropped on one knee beside him, and levelled his rifle.

“Stop!” shouted Talbot again.

This Loa, if he could by any lucky chance be won over, might be useful, seeing the devotion he could inspire. With him as a local under-governor, it would not be nearly so difficult to organize the district for rubber collecting and ivory hunting. But Loa only walked forward, with the pitiless sky overhead looking down at him, the friendly forest far away, beyond the houses. Talbot's revolver was cocked and pointed at his breast, but apparently Loa did not see it, nor the levelled rifle of the kneeling escort. Then at the last moment Loa sprang, whirling back the axe for a last blow.

But the stiffness of his fifty years betrayed him; he could not leap fast enough to catch the white man entirely off his guard. Talbot just managed to leap aside, in a most undignified fashion, without even time enough to pull the trigger. But the rifle of the kneeling escort had followed Loa’s movements, and the bullet struck Loa in the side as he poised on one foot with the axe above his head. From side to side the heavy bullet tore through him, from below upwards, expanding as it went. It struck below the ribs on his right side. It pierced his liver, it tore his heart to shreds, and, emerging, it shattered his left arm above the elbow. So Loa died in that very moment, the axe dropping behind him as he fell over with a crash. The rifleman tore open the breech, slid in another cartridge, and slammed the breechblock home. The skinny old woman saw Loa fall, and looked down at his body for one heartbroken moment. She uttered a shrill scream, and then raised her spider arms. It was as if she were going to attack Talbot with her fingernails; perhaps that was in her mind, but there could be no certainty about it, for the rifleman pulled the trigger again, and the skinny old woman fell dying beside the body of her Lord.

The End